Happy Old Year

A whole year has slipped through our lives.  A whole year.  A year is a good devisor of time but too long for a human to remember.  How many sunsets did I look at, full moons, how much love did I give away and how much was created in me.  Did I hold my wife’s hand enough, kiss my sons enough, and tell my daughter how pretty they are enough?  Did I use up my fair share of oxygen breathing deep from hard work and joy?  Did I notice all the flowers I could, did I grieve fully for the unredeemed around me, did I say that extra kind word, and did I touch enough shoulders, enough cheeks, and enough smooth surfaces?  Did I build enough fires, make good art, linger in bed enough, meditate and minster enough…I have very few sure memories of 2013……………………………………………………………………………………………………

But here is what I know.  The sun rose 365 times, I just checked and its just over my neighbors home, the oceans are still full, I was just there, I got every breath of oxygen I needed, I was always filled with love for the sharing, I had kindness in abundance and the will to keep my unworthiness at bay.  I tasted everything I wanted to, could feel my wife every time, and could smell every rose and every glimmer of CoCo Mademoiselle.  I saw my grandbabies every time I looked, gravity always came through, I healed every time, coffee still smelled and tasted good, spring came, summer came, fall came and its 27 degrees this morning.  I could go on and on but one thing is for sure, Someone loves me, seems to be enamored with my good pleasure and me and never missed a day showing it, 365 days of Coming Through.  A whole year given to me free, given to someone who can’t even make a nanosecond by Someone who just pulled off a year!!! 
 

The Tree At The Curb

Christmas has come and gone and what are we to make of it.  Pack up the decorations, put away the wreaths and haul the tree to the curb?  I am always struck by the discarded Christmas tree by the side of the road, once so treasured and gay, so filled with hope and anticipation, now kicked to the curb like so much refuse.  The contradiction seems almost unbearable, a hint of heinousness, a revelation of coming doom.  Our town collects them in great piles behind the mall and shreds them into mulch free for the taking.  There are two great truths of the gospel here

He (Jesus) was despised and rejected--a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

Isaiah 53:3

Truly, truly, I (Jesus) say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 

John 12:24

Parenting

There comes a day when roads fork, paths diverge, when loved ones go there separate ways.  It has always been such.  There is a great gift given every being, the ability to hold in trust the memory of the loved one, to muse and meditate on the human of our affection.  A lover is the most intense and longing but a parent is the most secure.  A lover will wax and wane, as a candle in a slight breeze but a parent will permit self-termination over the infliction of even the slightest harm to the child, no matter the age.  There is an example in God that is a bar my heart cannot match nor fathom.  For even if the whole world hung in the balance mine would not be offered up.  

Our whole family on the family farm

It Is Finished

I kept thinking this Christmas seemed less faithfilled than others.  Been busy, our 30^th anniversary, lots of travel, massive storms, rain and car trouble.  I was considering this when I realized this isn’t Christmas at all.  Christmas happened one time, 2000 years ago and now we only have a celebration to remember it by.  That is one reason why Christmas may not be as fulfilling as it once was. 2013 marks another year further away from the actual event, another year when some of the magic of it has been eroded away by time.  The great news is that time only works on humans, it can only erase our memory but it cannot erase God’s.  Christ’s birth did happen and its reasons for being are locked into all time eternal.  God sent His Son to save us and that Salvation is complete.  The celebration may be fading in our humanity but its purpose will Live Forever in our redeemed souls.  It Is Finished. 
Merry Christmas.